As he moved slowly away from the king's tent a little crowd of Gonzague's friends--Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, Nocé, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and Montaubert--all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat singular figure in such a scene. "Good Heavens! What is this?" cried Navailles. Nocé chuckled: "A hunchback brings luck. May I slap you on the back, little lord?" Æsop answered him, coolly: "Yes, Monsieur de Nocé, if I may slap you in the face." Nocé took offence instantly. "Now, by Heaven, crookback!" he cried, and made a threatening gesture against Æsop, who eyed him insolently with a mocking smile. Chavernay interposed. "Nonsense!" he cried. "Nonsense, Nocé, you began the jest." Then he added, in a lower voice: "You can't pick a quarrel with the poor devil." The hunchback paid him an extravagant salutation. "Monsieur de Chavernay, you are always chivalrous. You really ought to die young, for it will take so much trouble to turn you into a rogue." Fat Oriol, staring in amazement at the controversy, questioned: "What does the fellow mean?" Chavernay burst into a fit of laughing, and patted Oriol on the back. "I'm afraid he means that you are a rogue, Oriol." While the angry gentlemen stood together, with the hunchback apart eying them derisively, and Chavernay standing between the belligerents as peace-maker, Taranne hurriedly joined the group. He was evidently choking with news and eager to distribute it. "Friends, friends," he cried, "there is something extraordinary going on here to-night!" "What is it?" asked Chavernay. Taranne answered him, with a voice as grave as an oracle: "All the sentinels are doubled, and there are two companies of soldiers in the great court." Navailles protested: "You are joking!" Taranne was not to be put down. "Never more serious. Every one who enters is scrutinized most carefully." "That is easy to explain," said Chavernay; "it is just to make sure that they really are invited." Taranne declined to admit this interpretation of his mystery: "Not so, for nobody is allowed on any pretext to leave the gardens." Oriol flushed with a sudden wave of intelligence: "Perhaps some plot against his majesty." "Heaven knows," Navailles commented. Æsop interrupted the discussion with a dry laugh, dimly suggestive of the cackle of a jackdaw. "I know, gentlemen." Oriol stared at him. "You know?" Nocé gave vent to an angry laugh. "The hunchback knows."